Sri Aurobindo Institute of Mass Communication

Monday, June 12, 2006 The best entertainers The Hyderabad Film Club screened 15 films on two days - eight on the first day and the remaining on the second. Here are the synopses of some of the movies that got a good response from the viewers:

• SLICE OF LIFE: A young cobbler gets a gift from a couple when he returns them their bag they forget at his shop. He eagerly closes the business for the day to give the gift to his young sister at home. Just at the moment as he and his sister open the pack and eat the cookies, their elder brother bullies the boy for leaving work. He thinks the boy spent his day’s earnings on the cookies. The sweetness of the movie lies at the end when the boy opens his fist to give a battered cookie to his sister even after being severely assaulted by his elder brother. The 10 min 40 sec-movie in Malayalam was directed by Sagir Krishnan, who graduated from Chetana Media Institute in 2003. It won the Special Appreciation award.
• SAPERA: It is a documentary on snake charmers well picturised in a village in Uttar Pradesh. Directed by Ravish Kumar and scripted by Vivek Mishra and Ravish Kumar, it won a Special Appreciation award. The duration was 18 min 38 sec.
• XENO: The film portrays the feeling of dislike towards the Muslims.It has no dialogues and depicts a scene in a restaurant. Two persons siting there suspect a man who appears a Muslim when he goes out of the restaurant, leaving his bag ther. A beep comes from the bag. Suspecting it to be an explosive, the two search the bag only to find a cell phone ringing. The 8-min movie was directed by Albert Kurian and produced by Chetana Media. It was adjudged the best film on communalism.
• BHENT (The Gift): The Marathi film starts with a kid telling his uncle how he has stored a shell gifted to him by the latter a year before. ‘‘I didn’t give it to anybody,’’ he tells his uncle proudly. His uncle gives him Rs 10 to eat an ice cream.The boy goes to a restaurant and orders an ice cream. While eating it, he observes the waiter there who is busy taking orders from customers and serving them the food. He also observes how the waiter gets disappointed when the customers go without giving him a tip. Meanwhile, the waiter gives the boy the bill. The boy gives the Rs 10 note and gets back Rs 1 as change. He looks at the coin and in the next scene we see the tip the kid left for the waiter - it is not the coin, but the shell which his uncle had given him a year back and which had been his priced possession.The boy in the film looks natural and innocent. The 7 min 35 sec film, directed by Anand Pande and produced by the department of Communication Studies, University of Pune, was adjudged the best short fiction film.
• EARLY MEN: The film is a documentary on newspaper boys, who work even at 0.2 degrees temperature in the winter of Delhi. The unique feature of the documentary is, it has neither a voice-over nor any dialogues. The viewer follows the story only through the conversation of the newspaper boys. The 8 min 12 sec long film was directed by Karan Thapliyal and Souveek and produced by Sri Aurobindo Institute of Mass Communication in film studies. It won the best short non-fiction film award.

The last two movies received overwhelming response from the viewers at the Prasad Labs. Source: Indiavarta idleburra.com